1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image data storing method. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image processing apparatus with multiple storage devices and an image data storing method executed by the image processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a certain type of image forming apparatus, such as the one represented by an MFP (Multi Function Peripheral) which has multiple functions including faxing (i.e., transmitting/receiving a facsimile), printing, scanning, copying, and so on, is arising in the commercial market. The MFP includes a HDD (hard disc drive), a large capacity storage device for storing image data to be handled by the MFP.
Each of the faxing, printing, scanning and copying functions processes a different size of image data. For example, the scan data to be processed in the scanning function generally has a larger amount of data, compared to the facsimile data to be processed in the faxing function. If the MFP has a single large capacity HDD, it will always be driven, regardless of which function being mainly used, even when the function processes only a small amount of data. Thus, the large HDD must be driven, although the power consumption of the HDD soars as the size of the HDD increases, which requires unnecessarily large power consumption.